Bengals hire son of Tark

George Tarkanian, son of former UNLV men’s basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, was hired Monday as Bonanza High School’s boys basketball coach.

The younger Tarkanian will be in his first high school coaching job after previous stints at the College of Southern Nevada and with the International Basketball League’s Las Vegas Stars.

“I’m just excited to be coaching in interscholastic sports again,” said Tarkanian, 46. “When (CSN) dropped the basketball program, I thought it’d be nice to get into high school coaching.”

Tarkanian guided CSN to a 16-14 record in its only season, 2002-03, before the school eliminated the program in March 2003.

He also had a brief run as the first coach of the Las Vegas Stars in 2006-07.

Tarkanian will replace former Desert Pines guard Derek Brown, who was hired in the spring to fill the void created when Rick Eurich left to become Del Sol’s athletic director.

Bonanza athletic director Cathy Szymarek said Brown left the Clark County School District for personal reasons.

Tarkanian will continue to teach college success and political science at CSN, and he billed the college’s proximity to Bonanza as a positive.

“I’m very excited to meet (players) and do some fun things,” he said. “I know I miss coaching, and this is a great chance to get back into coaching.”

Tarkanian, a 1982 graduate of Bishop Gorman, had a successful eight-year run coaching at community colleges in California before taking the job at CSN.

“I was dealing with 18-, 19-year-old kids,” he said of his college career. “Now it’ll be 17 or 18. I think I can be successful with it like I was in college.”

Tarkanian will try to guide Bonanza to its first winning season since 2006-07. The Bengals were 7-17 overall and 5-11 in the Southwest League last season.